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Need some help with brass programming

Transients

New Member
When you record a brass melody with long notes and sustain articulation and in the end of each note you wanna have a couple of 16th notes which leads into the next long note. Like: Baaaaaaaam-Bam-Bam-Baaaaaaaam-Bam-Bam-Baaaaaaaam

Do you play the Bam-Bam (16th notes) also with the sustain articulation or do you switch to another articulation for these notes?
 
Depends on the library you are using. with vsl you would switch to short detache or perf repetition and then back. But sometimes legato just does the job.
 
You would switch to a short articulation if you want the 16th notes separated, staccato sounding. If you use the sustain articulation, you'll get a sound closer to the 16th notes slurring into the next long note.
 
Some libraries are very playable (Adventure Brass, for example), so you only have to use one patch. Others require using two patches by either stacking a sustain and staccato, or just by using seperate tracks.
 
A staccato sound would be more realistic and natural in most cases, although I have found with CSB for example the marcato sounds decent in that case. For a quick mockup or sketch, it's probably not bad, but for a final product I'd always use short articulations for that.
 
I think you can do whatever works best like other people have suggested. What to listen for: If the release decay awkwardly blurs with other nearby notes, it can sound unrealistic and bad. You can try to find an articulation that avoids this weird blur, then great. If that requires separate articulations, then hopefully your library has sampled them consistently enough that switching won't cause weird timbral shifts. If needed, one way to address the awkward blur is to temporarily shorten the ADSR release so the notes decay quicker than the next note arrives. Or better, this is where a library like Berlin Brass excels a lot, since they sampled staccatissimo with tongue stopped sound, which makes it much more realistic to emulate agile short brass notes that would have been double or triple tongued.
 
Definately different patches for the 16th notes and longer notes..... a staccato or staccatissimo patch depending on the tempo of the piece or even repetitions. Once it gets above a certain tempo (somewher around 130ish) start looking for double tongued patches.

If the tempo is slower and you are looking for a heavier accent then marcato patches work well (Hollywood Brass has Marc short patches which can work well).
 
But also, if you can't answer this question with your ears and trial and error, you should probably listen to more brass players playing music so you just have this internalized. Which one sounds more realistic to you? If you don't know, you should!
 
Some libraries are very playable (Adventure Brass, for example), so you only have to use one patch. Others require using two patches by either stacking a sustain and staccato, or just by using seperate tracks.

Which libraries do you think are more playable?
For Strings
For Brass
For Woodwinds
 
Which libraries do you think are more playable?
Ensembles:
For Strings
Adventure Strings, Trailer Strings, Marcato patches of a lot of other libraries, Perfomance Legatos of Spitfire Chamber Strings
For Brass
Caspian, Angry Brass, Adventure Brass, Trailer Brass
For Woodwinds -
Solo:
For Strings
Audiomodeling Solo Strings
For Brass
Samplemodeling Trumpet/Horn+Tuba/Trombone
Wallanderinstruments WIVI
For Woodwinds
Audiomodeling Woodwinds
Wallanderinstruments WIVI
 
Thank you very much for the quick response.
Among each group, which one do have the better/realistic sound?
Same taking about dryness (ability to reproduce dry sound).
 
It depends...
Not a helpful answer, I know.
I'd say that ensemble libraries in general are good for full and dense arrangements, block chords, rhythmic stuff, slow lines. Less for convincing melodic and lyrical parts as they often lack good legatos. And it sounds more convincing to separate "strings" into sections like Vl1/Vl2/Vla etc or trumpets in Tp1/Tp2/Tp3 with legatos and individual dynamic CCs.
On the other hand it's harder to build convincing ensembles from solo instruments especially in unison situations. Takes more time and you never know the result before playing all separate parts which makes it harder to correct thing that went wrong.
All Sample- and Audiomodeling instruments as well as WIVI are dry. Musicalsampling half dry, Spitfire wet. There are tons of YT walkthrough's of all libraries. And realistic sound is 90% the way you arrange and perform it.
 
I usually switch to a short articulation like StacSs or repetition except with CSB : the legato marcato patch does the job perfectly.
 
It depends...
Not a helpful answer, I know.
I'd say that ensemble libraries in general are good for full and dense arrangements, block chords, rhythmic stuff, slow lines. Less for convincing melodic and lyrical parts as they often lack good legatos. And it sounds more convincing to separate "strings" into sections like Vl1/Vl2/Vla etc or trumpets in Tp1/Tp2/Tp3 with legatos and individual dynamic CCs.
On the other hand it's harder to build convincing ensembles from solo instruments especially in unison situations. Takes more time and you never know the result before playing all separate parts which makes it harder to correct thing that went wrong.
All Sample- and Audiomodeling instruments as well as WIVI are dry. Musicalsampling half dry, Spitfire wet. There are tons of YT walkthrough's of all libraries. And realistic sound is 90% the way you arrange and perform it.

Thank you SO much.
On the other hand, I would like to know the same about next:
- Electric Guitar
- Acoustic Guitar
- Big band / Jazz instruments
 
Thank you SO much.
On the other hand, I would like to know the same about next:
- Electric Guitar
- Acoustic Guitar
- Big band / Jazz instruments

Do you have an example that you can put up (maybe a mockup that you have tried?). Someone might even recreate it with one of their libraries, to show you how it could sound with a particular one.
 
Speaking of playability for brass I'd also recommend Infinite Brass and for Woodwinds Infinite Woodwinds.

For strings wait for the incoming Sample Modeling Ensemble and Solo Strings and Infinite Strings that should be very playable.
 
Do you have an example that you can put up (maybe a mockup that you have tried?). Someone might even recreate it with one of their libraries, to show you how it could sound with a particular one.

I am mostly interested in playability.
Which ones are more playable.
Sorry, I don´t have any mockup.
Looking for performances as:
- Acoustic Fingerpicking as Nick Drake
- Electric Rhythm (Nirvana,Foo Fighters)
- Swing Solo Guitar (Manouche-Django, Swing-C. Christian)
- Swing Rhythm (Big Band)
It is very important for me the playability-easytouse ability. Baring in mind this, I prefer, among the options, the best sounding ones.
 
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